BMC Software this week launched MyIT, an enterprise IT help desk solution that empowers employees to take more personal control over their IT services and to get the right type of help they need -- anytime, anywhere, from any device.

Frustration with company IT departments is a widely shared experience. Forrester Research reports that just 35 percent of business decision-makers say IT provides “high quality, timely end user support.” What’s more, employees are increasingly circumventing their IT organizations in search of faster IT support and problem resolution.

Moreover, studies show that the friction between users and IT help capabilities saps as much as 20 percent of productivity away from workers. That's a day a week when things go wrong.

“The IT people and non-IT people sometimes talk two different languages, and it’s hard to cross that barrier. In fact, a lot of times there’s this unfounded fear of IT because the users typically don’t get the information they need, or don’t understand it when it is given to them,” said Robert Stinnett, senior analyst at Carfax.

What's largely been missing is a focus on the complete processes of IT help desk -- from the users' point of view. Too often help comes in the form of a technology fix for a specific product, leaving users in the role of integrator, if they can. Or, when they are able, they find that they manage their personal IT services better using online resources than their IT experiences provide at work. [Disclosure: BMC is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

The result is a merging of IT provisioning and access functions with the support information and help functions when things get dicey. It makes a lot of sense to me that these functions overlap and come through similar, user-friendly interfaces and processes.

"This is a game-changing way of presenting data and services to end-users," said Jason Frye, Director, Office of the CTO, at BMC Software.

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“Today, in a powerful irony, an employee’s personal IT experience is much better than their IT experience at work, yet they’re forced to relinquish the productive value of their personal IT when they go to work,” said Kia Behnia, BMC’s CTO. Employees want IT organizations that provide a modern 'store front' for IT services and information delivery and a 'genius bar' ability to manage and control the IT services and information they need to do their jobs. IT organizations must respond to this change, and MyIT is the bridge that connects their industrialized infrastructure with the needs and expectations of their fellow employees.”

Among the features and benefits of MyIT:

The combination of self-service, process automation and the right employee-facing UI slash the IT costs associated with resolving trouble tickets – as much as 25 percent in large companies.

IT organizations must respond to this change, and MyIT is the bridge that connects their industrialized infrastructure with the needs and expectations of their fellow employees.

MyIT allows employees to focus on productivity and value creation, rather than fixing IT problems. Employees can specify and manage their own personalized IT service and information delivery. Services and information required by individual employees are immediately updated as new information comes online or an employee’s location changes.

MyIT takes an employee’s positive experience with IT in their personal lives and extends it into their work life with immediate access to the right services and context-aware content, unhampered by old-line IT processes.Speaking about the new solution, Abraham Galan, CIO at energy giant PEMEX, said: “PEMEX will be among the first companies in the world to deliver BMC Software’s MyIT solution – in our case, that means more than 75,000 IT users. Employees are demanding a much better service experience than many IT organizations have been able to provide. PEMEX has been a leader in this area, and we believe that BMC’s MyIT will reduce our cost of service delivery and enable us to compete more effectively, both for markets and for talent.”

The implications of the service also involve the cloud. MyIT can easily be delivered as an on-premises or as SaaS services. This sets the stage for IT to begin outsourcing more help desk functions that it makes sense to, but deliver them all with a singular front end. The MyIT services will come with web, as well as native mobile apps, when the service goes to beta in January. General availabilty is expected in April.

The timing is great, given the uptick in BYOD interest and use, too. I can also see where a social environment meshes well with MyIT, so that the "wall" interface and community-based help and knowledge are shared to more benefit of all. And this also takes the load off of IT while building a better knowledge base.

Lastly, the MyIT approach also fosters more of a two-way street, so that usage, problem and remediation data are being delivered back to the CMDB, the IT system of record, to build a continuous and integrated IT lifecycle capability. I can even imagine more automation and data-driven IT support from the IT systems themselves, a IT help cloud provider, or both, in the coming years.

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